Don Marrandino is the guy who hangs around with members of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and counts rocker Sammy Hagar, country star Toby Keith and entertainment icons Donny & Marie as close friends.
Rick Mazer is not that guy. He’s the guy who learned the gaming business by walking the casino floor with Jack Binion when Mazer was an executive running the Horseshoe Hammond in northwest Indiana, which sits about 15 minutes from downtown Chicago in a waterfront setting that looks nothing like the Strip. Once called “Horseshoe’s constant,” Mazer also oversees the Horseshoe South in Elizabeth, Ind., for the Harrah’s-owned Horseshoe brand.
Contrasts aside, Marrandino and Mazer share a commonality as high-achieving casino executives moving up the corporate escalator in Harrah’s Entertainment, which announced last week that Marrandino would be promoted to head up the company’s Eastern Division from his original hometown of Atlantic City. Mazer steps in to oversee the five hotels on the eastern edge of the Strip formerly operated by Marrandino: Flamingo, Harrah’s, Imperial Palace, O’Shea’s and Bill’s Gamblin' Hall & Casino. Aside from a brief sojourn to Lake Tahoe, where he ran Harrah’s and Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, Marrandino has lived and worked in Las Vegas for 20 years, with Station Casinos, Wynn Las Vegas and the Hard Rock Hotel before being hired by Harrah’s six years ago. Mazer, who helped enact a $500 million expansion project at the Horseshoe resort in Indiana, has spent three days in Las Vegas, all of them last week during a sprint of his new properties. When asked if he’d seen any shows in Las Vegas, Mazer said, “Not one. Not yet.” Mazer, who has a wife and two daughters, is expected to be in place by the end of September, a move coinciding with Marrandino’s return to Atlantic City.
The two executives took time Friday afternoon to conduct their lone dual interview in the Flamingo’s High Limit lounge. Samples from the interview, which was conducted for video purposes (that clip will be posted, post-edit, Thursday):
Marrandino, on his advice to Mazer:
“We have some properties here, probably almost a half a mile of properties and 9,000 hotel rooms, 10,000 employees and 30-some restaurants. And what I know about (Rick) is, he's a guy who walks around the hotel and gets to meet the employees. He’s a casino guy, so he’s like me, more comfortable probably down here with the people than up in the office.”
Mazer, on what changes he foresees for the five properties formerly run by Marrandino:
“I don’t know that there’s any attempt to go out and overhaul what has been done and make massive changes. Don has done a phenomenal job with his properties, and that’s not just something where you go in and shake the bowl up and see how it lands. But the one thing that is consistent is change. We have got to continue to change. We need to change our slot product, we need to change our floors around, we have to update -- change our carpet and wallpaper and paint, and those things have to continue on and evolve.”
Marrandino, on his return to Atlantic City, where his casino industry career began:
“It’s funny how life goes full circle. … I got a job at Bally’s, and my first paycheck was for $5 an hour, in 1981. …I worked the front desk, (performed) duties as assigned. I worked my way through the hotel. I figured out the gaming side. It’s one of the heartbeats of these properties, the front desk, because you deal with everybody.”
Mazer, on his biggest economic challenge entering his new position:
“Well, certainly I hope we’re at the bottom and there’s nowhere to go but up, and Don has managed through the worst of the times. The key is to make a great environment for them and to make sure every customer who walks through the door has a great experience and wants to come back. We can only get them back if they leave here and say, ‘That was fantastic.’ Whether it was Flamingo or Harrah’s or Imperial Palace, wherever, you’ll get that customer back.”
Marrandino, on what he would have done differently in Las Vegas:
“I look in the rear-view mirror of what I’ve done in Las Vegas … one of the things on my list for Atlantic City that I’ll do better is, I need to get involved with some civic organizations back there, because it’s my home.”
Mazer, on if he’d feel comfortable conducting such Vegas celebrity-styled executive tasks as walking the red carpet with Donny & Marie:
“You know, one of the things we did in Hammond, we built a $500 million new casino, and with it we built an entertainment space called The Venue. We have had some of the biggest and best stars come through there, and an awful lot of them. I’ve spent some time with them, get their feedback, and it’s very rewarding. I look forward to meeting (Donny & Marie).”
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